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Fahmida Suleman

Phyllis Bishop curator for the Modern Middle East

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Fahmida is a curator responsible for the
Museum’s outstanding collection of ethnographic objects and
textiles from the Middle East and Central Asia. Her area covers
traditional dress and textiles, amulets, jewellery, pottery,
metalwork, and other artefacts of daily life.

She has a particular interest in religious iconography and is
also investigating the silver jewellery traditions of the Arabian
Peninsula.

Fahmida is currently working on the British Museum’s collection
of twentieth-century Omani silver jewellery. She is also
researching the costumes and textiles from the Middle East and
Central Asia for a future publication.

She has a degree in Islamic and Religious Studies from the
University of Toronto and obtained her Master’s and Doctorate
degrees in Islamic Art and Archaeology from Oxford University. Her
Master’s thesis focussed on nineteenth-century Gujarati-inspired
architecture in the Stone Town of Zanzibar, Tanzania, and her
Doctoral thesis investigated the multi-valent iconography of lustre
ceramics from eleventh-century Fatimid Egypt.

Fahmida is currently working on a forthcoming publication
focussing on the British Museum’s renowned collection of textiles
from the Middle East and Central Asia (BM Press, 2016).

Academic Advisory Board Member, The Art of Heritage Project on
Traditional Dress from Saudi Arabia in collaboration with the
London Middle East Institute, SOAS

Editorial Board Member, Art History (Journal)

Member, Islamic Art Circle, UK

Recent publications

F. Suleman, ed.,“People of the Prophet’s House: Artistic and
Ritual Expressions of Shi‘i Islam”, in Azimuth Editions in
association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies and the British
Museum, forthcoming, 2014.

F. Suleman, “From Shards to Bards: Pottery Making in Historic
Cairo”, in Living in Historic Cairo: Past and Present in an
Islamic City, eds. F. Daftary, E. F. Fernea and A. Nanji, The
Institute of Ismaili Studies and Azimuth Editions in association
with Washington University Press, 2010, pp. 133-144.

F. Suleman, Contributions on “Art and Architecture of the
Fatimids”, in An Illustrated History of the Ismailis, eds.
F. Daftary and Z. Hirji, The Institute of Ismaili Studies and
Azimuth Editions, 2008.

F. Suleman, ed., “Word of God, Art of Man: the Qur’an and
its Creative Expressions. Selected Proceedings from the
International Colloquium, London, 18-21 October 2003”, Oxford
University Press and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2007.